There is an increased demand for low cost printing of books and the like which can performed by a user as opposed to a commercial printer. Techniques have been developed for binding of sheets to form a book having characteristics that are similar to commercially bound books. One such technique, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,873, the contents of which are hereby fully incorporated herein by reference, uses a binder strip having a thermally activated adhesive. The binder strip functions to bind the sheets together in the form of a book, with the strip being located along the spine of the bound book. Although books bound using this technique have become popular, it usually necessary to print descriptive information regarding the book, such as author, title and the like on the front and back covers of the book rather than on the spine (binder strip) of the book. Thus, for example, when the book is placed on a shelf, it is necessary to remove the book from the book read the descriptive information printed on the covers. Another approach is to print an adhesive-backed label using a label printing machine and applying the label to the spine (binder strip) of the bound book. A primary shortcoming of this approach is that the book is unprofessional in appearance.
It would be desirable to be able to print descriptive information on the binder strip before the book is bound. It would also be desirable to select different orientations of the printed text. The physical characteristics of most binder strips are such that printing is very difficult.
There is a need for a printer having a print head mechanism which is capable of printing on binder strips so that bound books can be easily provided having an professional appearance and which a user can easily select different orientations for the printed text. A printer in accordance with the present invention is capable of printing binder strips which meet these requirements. These and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION together with the drawings.